The God of the Woods, by Liz Moore, 2024 Riverhead Books
How much of our identity and agency will we surrender to be protected by the structures that uphold our world? Liz Moore’s collective of female protagonists in The God of the Woods find out for themselves across three decades and against the backdrop of the Adirondack Mountains in upstate New York.
Every Summer, the prominent and wealthy Van Laars of Albany welcome dozens of children and teenagers to Camp Emerson on their family land known as the Van Laar Preserve. The Camp Director in 1975 is again the enigmatic TJ Hewitt, who has always lived on the land and inherited the role from her father Vic. Tracey is a first-time camper of newly-divorced parents whose Dad signs her up to spend time and money on his new girlfriend. Returning this summer as a lead counselor is Louise, who grew up in the neighboring town of Shattuck and is engaged to a family friend of the Van Laars.
The summer of 1975 however, will be unique in that the 13-year-old daughter of the Van Laars, Barbara, has descended from her family’s mansion on the property (ironically named Self Reliance) to partake in the Camp. Every one on staff, every family member and friend visiting the Van Laars this summer, and all campers know the story of how Barbara’s brother Bear vanished from Camp Emerson 14 years prior and was never seen again.
When the nightmare of 1961 resurrects itself, and Barbara Van Laar disappears in the dark, the story’s timeline jumps what feels like sporadically to different moments of the Summer. Then we travel back to when Bear and Barbara’s parents met, married, and had their first child. Then we shift to 1961, the year the first Van Laar child vanished, and finally back to the ensuing investigation to find Barbara. Moore’s tilt-a-whirl delivery is maddening at first. Each time pivot however, begins to feel deliberately placed to provide another breadcrumb as to how and why two children of the same parents could pull the same vanishing act a decade and a half apart.
As cold-blooded as The God of the Woods’s mysteries are, their unraveling by the imperfect perspectives of flawed characters adds an ironic human warmth to the narratives. We partially view both disappearances through the drug and alcohol-induced haze of Bear and Barbara’s mother Alice. The substances she takes to cope with the loss of her son are encouraged and enabled by the men in the family to make her easier to handle. We follow Tracey’s summer, as she is over the moon by having a friend for the first time in Barbara. She accepts any erratic or illicit behavior and rule-breaking from the latter to not jeopardize their new bond, including her friend’s nightly visits to the woods. Louise’s summer is the most precarious. She is resigned to marry into wealth and with an abusive man to give herself and her little brother the chance of a better life, and is snared as a leading suspect in Barbara’s disappearance. All fragmented narratives of the day Barbara Van Laar disappeared are being pieced together by novice but steadfast detective Judyta Luptack. Judy is hellbent to prove herself as the only female detective in the State of New York. Her effort in piecing the shattered details becomes the driving force to unearth the past and present truths.
Along with the granular intricacies of a mystery and the intimacy of her characters, Moore proffers a wider social lens. Her story ends in 1975. How much have we changed since then, if at all, as individuals? We have the same fundamental desires and needs of love, belonging, and safety in 2026 that we had in 1975,1961, or any other year. The critical question is how much have we really changed as a society. Reading literature that makes us want to ask is the ideal way to begin.
An isolated summer camp surrounded by forest is, as it always proves to be, an ideal setting for Moore’s disconcerting mystery. She is our guide, leading us down a path with a dizzying amount of twists and blind turns. You the reader will want to follow instructions given out on day one at Camp Emerson: “WHEN LOST SIT DOWN AND YELL.” But if you trust her, she will lead you out of the woods, much sooner than you want to leave it.